


deep in my heart (it's always your place)

by secretlyhuman



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Drinking Games, F/M, New Girl au, Pining, roommate au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 10:36:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12010950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretlyhuman/pseuds/secretlyhuman
Summary: “Jake, just suck it up and kiss me.”He was trapped behind the hallway door with Amy Santiago and she was glaring down at him in nothing but a black bra and one of Rosa’s old tutus.





	deep in my heart (it's always your place)

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from a song called Better With you by This Wild Life. This was inspired by [ this ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6982702/chapters/19149247) elsaclack one shot and the fact that Nick and Jess' first kiss is one of my favourite bits of New Girl and I'd kind of forgotten about it. 
> 
> Thanks for reading. Comments make my day.

“Jake, just suck it up and kiss me.”

He was trapped behind the hallway door with Amy Santiago and she was glaring down at him in nothing but a black bra and one of Rosa’s old tutus.

“Wow, Santiago, when you say it like that, it really makes me want to.” He found himself glaring back up at her, the whole situation setting him on edge. As they’d been pushed into the hallway he’d been the warm, happy kind of drunk but the longer they stayed out there the more it faded, leaving him feeling exposed under her stare. From what he could tell, Amy was still at a solid four on the scale, a kiss would mean nothing to her and the thought ached.

“Jake.” Her voice pulled him out of his thoughts. “Let’s just do it already.”

“Fine.”

“Fine” She parroted his words back to him as he reluctantly pulled his body from the ground to stand in front of her. He could feel the heat radiating from her, the scratch of tulle against his legs.

“Okay.” He hoped she couldn’t hear the unsteadiness of his breath. “Right. Three. Two - actually I’m not gonna count, I mean I don’t count down to my kisses, that would be super -”

“Jake. Focus.”

“Right. Yes. Focusing. Wait, do you like tongue?” He punctuated the sentence by sticking his tongue out and wiggling it as she rolled her eyes.

“Focus.”

“I am. I wanted to make sure. I don’t wanna use tongue if you’re not into that.” He paused for a second before continuing. “Oh and one last thing, you’re not allowed to fall in love with me.”

She rolled her eyes again and his heart sank a little. “Just kiss me, Jake.”

“Okay, bossy.” He put his hands on the sides of her head, tangled in her soft hair and started to lean in. Eyes closed, head first, can’t lose.

She jerked back. “Stop doing that with your face.”

“That’s just my face, Ames.” He put his hands back in her hair and shifted towards her, this time with the most exaggerated grimace he could muster. He felt her dissolve in drunken giggles and he opened his eyes, the grimace replaced with a genuine grin.

She took a few paces back and he saw surprise register across her face as she made contact with the door. He could still hear the rumble of conversation from beyond it, louder as he went to sit next to where she’d dropped to the ground. She looked extra pretty tonight, he thought, maybe this was just what she looked like when she was happy. She was the sun, radiant and nothing he could do would ever be good enough for her but he wanted it so badly even if it meant him burning away.

“Okay, I’m gonna admit something.” Confusion spread through him and he could feel the way it wrote itself across his face. “I might be your cooler.”

“You’re definitely my cooler, Ames, I can blame all my romantic failure on you.” The confusion was replaced by triumph, she’d admitted it, he’d won. Technically, he wasn’t lying either, he could blame his romantic failure on her, just not in the way he was implying. (Most of the girls he’d dated didn’t love the fact he loved someone else, more often than not it was a dealbreaker.)

“Okay, no.” She seemed a little drunker than she had when their roommates had locked them behind the door. She was definitely approaching five-drink-Amy and he wasn’t sure how that would end. “You are your own cooler like 80% of the time, I just don’t help.” She was smiling in a lazy sort of way and it hit him, not for the first time, how far gone he was for her.

“No. I refuse. I am brilliant at romance.”

“Well maybe, some basic grooming and organisation and you’d be even better.” He was smiling at her but a low level of panic was starting to settle into his bones.

“Oh really.”

“Definitely, clean your room and you’d be a ten out of ten.”

“A ten, huh. But you still wouldn’t kiss me.” He said it with a smile but they could feel the cloud of tension around them.

“Definitely a ten.” She seemed totally sincere, definitely a five on the scale, at the point where talking about feelings no longer seemed gross or scary. He was smiling despite himself. Eyes wide and unfocused, she nodded back at him.

He was suddenly aware of how close they really were, pressed together from shoulder to hip, backs against the door. The noise of the room behind him seemed to fade away, still there but unimportant, nothing could be as important as the woman sitting in front of him. For a second he thought maybe he could do it right, could kiss Amy Santiago on his terms.

And then there was a bang on the hallway door. “Babe, are you alright back there?” Teddy had officially arrived at their apartment.

“Yeah, I'm fine. I’m great.” Her voice came out as a squeak as they were shocked out of the moment. He watched the blush that formed right from the top of her ears as she jumped from the floor, putting as much distance between them as she could in the cramped hall.

“What’s even going on here?” His voice echoed through the door and he heard the rumble of Rosa’s voice, she must have explained it well because soon Teddy’s voice joined the chorus of “Kiss. Kiss. Kiss” that rang through the door.

“Kiss me.” She was clearly getting bored, at the point of drunkenness where nothing could get in her way.

“No. I don’t want to. You can’t make me.” It had hit him the second he’d heard Teddy’s voice, he really didn’t want to. (Or at least didn’t want to want to kiss her.) Because even if he kissed her on his own terms, she got to walk away to Teddy and he would be left behind. She didn’t need him, he couldn’t walk away and she could.

“Peralta, just fucking kiss me.” Her face was scrunched up in anger and he wanted to kiss it away, but really he couldn’t.

“No. Not like this.”

“Not like this?”

“I mean because we’re not like that and it would be weird like Luke and Leia.” He couldn’t breathe, his rib cage had to be shrinking because breathing had never been so difficult as it was then, with her body next to his and her eyes wide with confusion. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He pushed past her, into her room and made his way onto the flimsy shelf of the fire escape that was bolted onto the wall outside her window.

His last impression of her as he walked across to the living room window was concern and her telling him it was okay, but really it wasn’t it might not ever be again.

This all led to him being sat at the kitchen table, Rosa on one side and Charles on the other, while they yelled at him for how irresponsible he was but he couldn’t quite bring himself to care. Not when Amy had looked at him with such concern.

“Jake, if you ever pull shit like that again I will not hesitate to gut you.” Rosa glared at him once more from across the table before leaving for her room and Gina who was in it.

“Jakey, I was so scared, and we will talk about this but Genevieve is waiting for me right now.” Charles kissed him on the cheek before he walked away but Jake was too tired to dodge it.

To compound what had already become the worst night of his life as he got up Amy and Teddy rounded the corner; he found himself face to face with them before he could escape.

“Babe, its hilarious, he jumped out of a window so he didn’t have to kiss you.” Teddy had his arm around her and as he spoke her smile looked more like a grimace. But, he thought, she was happy and that was more important than one kiss.

“Yeah, that happened, I guess.” He stared at the floor, hoping they would leave him to his moping.

“Well, you’re missing out.” He pulled Amy in and kissed her, it was little more than a chaste press of lips but it was enough to turn his stomach. Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes and neither did his as he forced out a half laugh, all the while wishing the ground would swallow him whole.

He saw her once more that evening, he was coming back from brushing his teeth and there she was in the corridor. No longer in the tutu but in yoga pants and an NYPD shirt he knew had originally belonged to one of her brothers.

“Tonight was weird, I’m sorry, Ames.” He kept staring at the floor, didn’t know what he could do if he was exposed to the full weight of her gaze. He hadn’t meant to run away so much but he could hardly tell her how much she was worth to him, that it was more than a drunken kiss in a stupid game.

“Jake, it’s alright.” He looked up and she wasn’t looking at him.

“Night, Ames.” She turned to go and the moment seemed to happen in slow motion. He felt himself reach out catching her arm and then in a blur his mouth was on hers and he felt her hands flutter up and land no his chest. His were on her waist and in her hair, finding all the places where they fitted together. The hallway was narrow and smelt like dust but it didn’t matter because he was kissing Amy Santiago and she was kissing him back. After what felt like an hour but also like no time at all she pulled away, finishing with one last close mouthed press of lips.

He left her in the hallway but as he reached his door he turned back to look at her, pupils blown wide and mouth flushed. “Hey Ames, I meant something like that.” With that he closed the door leaving her standing there. Because sure she was the sun, he was going to end up burned but he didn’t think he could forgive himself for not doing it. Now she knew he was an option and that was all he could hope for.

 

 


End file.
